Month: March 2017

For business owners looking to drive traffic to their sites and businesses, Google AdWords is a great tool to use. AdWords is Google’s online advertising platform to help business owners promote their businesses. AdWords gives the business complete control over type of ad, cost of ad, and ad placement. Ads can be placed on Google’s Search Network or Google’s Display Network. The variety of setting options gives AdWord users the ability to personalize their account to best fit their business.

A few pieces of general AdWords knowledge are important to understand before diving straight into a Google AdWords Campaign. Google AdWords breaks down into three main levels: account, campaign, and ad groups. On the account level the account manager can set the email address, password, and billing information settings. After account comes the campaign level. There can be multiple campaigns under an account. Campaign settings help users to determine who and how they want to target their audience. On this level you can choose location, language, target age, days the ads are shown, frequency and time of ads shown, and devices that the ad will be shown on. Within each campaign are ad groups. Ad groups contain the keywords a user wants to trigger their advertisements. Understanding the level structure of AdWords is vital for users that want to be successful with AdWords.

Under the campaign level, a user sets their budget. With Google AdWords an advertiser will only need to spend $0.01 more than the competition to show above them in the Google Network. For example, if Bob’s Barbershop sets a bid for $3.00 per ad, Harry’s Haircuts would only need to bid $3.01. This method helps AdWord users maximize budget use without overspending on their ads. Budgets are not the only element that impacts ad rank and consequently ad positioning. Quality score also impacts where an ad ranks. Quality score is based on three factors: expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience. The quality score and budget determine where the ad will rank. This all comes into play in a real live auction. Auctions are held in real time when Google users search for a keyword. At that moment all the factors are taken into consideration and Google determines which ads are placed in which position.

Once a user has their ad groups up and running, they can evaluate their performance. Evaluation can be determined through conversion tracking, Google Analytics, and campaign experiments. Each of these ways allows the user to uniquely determine how their ads are performing and how they can better improve their ad presence.

Google AdWords is a valuable tool for small and large business owners alike. The flexibility and customizable settings of AdWords allows business owners to choose what fits best in their business. Continued practice with Google AdWords is the best way to continue success.